1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to communication systems, and, more particularly, to wireless communication systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional wireless communication systems include a network of base stations, base station routers, and/or other wireless access points that are used to provide wireless connectivity to mobile units in geographic areas (or cells) associated with the network. Information may be communicated between the network and the mobile units over an air interface using wireless communication links that typically include multiple channels. The channels include forward link (or downlink) channels that carry signals from the base stations to the mobile units and reverse link (or uplink) channels that carry signals from the mobile units to the base station. The channels may be defined using time slots, frequencies, scrambling codes or sequences, or any combination thereof. In the 3rd generation Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 1xEV-DO system, the channels are defined by modulating signals transmitted on the channels using orthogonal codes or sequences.
Base stations and mobile units share the resources that are available to transmit and receive information over the air interfaces in the wireless communication system. In cdma2000 1xEV-DO systems, the resources include the transmission power available at the base station and/or the mobile unit, codes and or sequences that are used to define the uplink and downlink channels, and the like. Wireless communication systems implement different types of resource management to allocate resources to the base stations and/or mobile units for transmission over the downlink and/or uplink. The resource management techniques can be broadly grouped into two categories: quality of service (QoS) and best effort. In QoS resource management, a user is guaranteed a certain level of service over the air interface. The guaranteed service level may include guarantees on overall data throughput, transmission delay and/or latency, packet error rates, and the like. QoS resource management is typically used for applications such as voice transmission, video transmission, and gaming. These applications are typically delay intolerant so that the user experience may be noticeably affected by variations in overall data throughput, transmission delay and/or latency, packet error rates, and the like. The different levels of QoS are usually tied to different prices so that users can pay additional fees in order to receive higher QoS levels.
In contrast, best effort resource management, typically applied to delay tolerant applications such as web browsing, e-mail, file transfer, and the like, attempts to fairly distribute the available resources among the active users in the wireless communication system. Best effort resource management does not guarantee any particular level of service because the available resources are not guaranteed. For example, the available resources for any given transmission may vary with the number of users, the resources available to a base station or mobile unit, channel conditions, and other factors that may affect the wireless communication system. For example, best effort resource management may not be able to guarantee particular data throughputs, transmission delays and/or latencies, packet error rates, and the like. Furthermore, all of the applications that are allocated resources using best effort resource management will be treated approximately the same and receive approximately the same amount of resources given the same RF environment. As a result, users with similar RF conditions running similar types of best effort applications in the same network will have pretty much the same user experience in terms of data throughputs, transmission delay and/or latencies, packet error rates, and the like.
Although best effort resource management can be an effective way of fairly distributing resources to users, applying a single resource allocation criterion to all best effort applications limits the ability of service providers to offer attractive pricing strategies in the competitive wireless markets and for jurisdictional requirement in some areas. For example, conventional best effort resource management schemes do not allow users running best effort applications to be divided into different priority weights that allow variations in the relative user experiences in the same network.